Rockets, orbiter, control room all there in glorious 3D.

Fans of US space exploration can now get an insider's view of Kennedy Space Center without the pesky need to go to Florida. In celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the opening of the Launch Operations Center at Kennedy, Google has worked with NASA to capture some of the significant locations within the Space Center, and has now put them on Street v\View.

According to its blog post on the new features, it's possible to take a look inside a control room, the Shuttle launch pad, and inside the Vehicle Assembly Building while there are two shuttles inside it. You can even poke around inside the museum that houses a Saturn V, the rocket that launched the Moon missions. Having not been there since I was a kid (and before the Shuttle program had its first launch), the images provided a nice view of how Kennedy has grown up over the years.

Yeah but the public never got to see inside the VAB, control room or launch pads. At least not that I know.

The VAB used to be part of the public tour for a long time, even during the Apollo program. They stopped it for various reasons, such as the SRBs being full of fuel, potential hypergolic fuel leaks from the Shuttles, the risk of tools/parts being dropped from high platforms being too much for the modern litigious environment, etc. It's possible that now that the Shuttle program is over and work in the VAB high bays have ended the public tours might resume, at least until the SLV program starts up in earnest (maybe).

These are cool, however it kind of shocks me how rudimentary Street View is. It's amazing and all, but the step-render-step-render and only move along these lines seems very clunky at this point. I've got to think that smoother seamless navigation inside a more realistic 3d space is possible and probably coming soon.

These are cool, however it kind of shocks me how rudimentary Street View is. It's amazing and all, but the step-render-step-render and only move along these lines seems very clunky at this point. I've got to think that smoother seamless navigation inside a more realistic 3d space is possible and probably coming soon.

I would say eventually, but not soon. The trick is being able to automate the modeling/texturing process. Otherwise it would take months to create an accurate 3D model of the VAB.

If you guys like this stuff, you should really see what NASA Tech does. They have 360 panoramas of just about anything you can imagine at KSC.

Bad Monkey! wrote:

It's possible that now that the Shuttle program is over and work in the VAB high bays have ended the public tours might resume, at least until the SLV program starts up in earnest (maybe).

The VAB tour has resumed and is part of the KSCVC Up-Close tour. It was already going on when Google captured these images in January-February, when Atlantis was still in the transfer aisle and Endeavour was still in HB4. Tourists could get very close to Atlantis during that time. See: [1][2]

Yeah but the public never got to see inside the VAB, control room or launch pads. At least not that I know.

The VAB used to be part of the public tour for a long time, even during the Apollo program. They stopped it for various reasons...

My dad worked for USA and I was lucky enough to go to see some of this on various occasions. They used to have a bring your child to work day...but that ended when I was very young. Yet they still had an open house day for employees where we would see much more that what the normal tour did. For instance, the tour stopped farther away from the launch pad than what we were allowed. I was able to get up close with discovery in the VAB. I saw the remains of Columbia when they were piecing the parts back together, and I saw Endeavour roll out to the pad for the last time. One of the neatest things was taking my boat out on the Indian River at night to watch a launch. That was amazing. The night turned into day.

But without being there, this is as close as you will ever come. This is a closer view than what I ever got to the launch pad. As close a look as any employee i think.

It would be nice if Google worked with Nasa by infusing them with much needed cash, and in return they are given something like some free satellite imaging data for maps or access to some nasa related hardware for stuff google is working on. (I am just using Google because of this article, I would welcome the funds from any company) We keep slashing the NASA budget, and while the private sector might pick up some of the slack, we are going to find ourselves as the pioneers of a bygone era in space while countries like China and India colonize the moon and mars. Pretty soon we will need to get Mexico (they have a solid space program with MASA) to launch our killer whales back to the moon.

If you can make it to Florida these things are totally worth seeing in person

I concur. Seeing the launch pad where Apollo 1 burned up and the memorial in person puts seeing the pictures and 3d stuff to shame, and it makes the whole trip there more than worthwhile. I luckily got a personal tour of Kennedy and Cape Canaveral from a family member who worked there a while back, and coupled with the fact I got to see one of the last few shuttle launches the next day, was one of the best vacations I've ever had!

Also, I never would have guessed that the Mercury launch site would have been so.... small. The building was practically right next to the launch site. That's one thing that isn't easily conveyed through pictures.

If you can make it to Florida these things are totally worth seeing in person

I concur. Seeing the launch pad where Apollo 1 burned up and the memorial in person puts seeing the pictures and 3d stuff to shame, and it makes the whole trip there more than worthwhile. I luckily got a personal tour of Kennedy and Cape Canaveral from a family member who worked there a while back, and coupled with the fact I got to see one of the last few shuttle launches the next day, was one of the best vacations I've ever had!

Also, I never would have guessed that the Mercury launch site would have been so.... small. The building was practically right next to the launch site. That's one thing that isn't easily conveyed through pictures.

I need to go back. I have vague memories of standing near one of the launch vehicles as a little kid, but that's it. Maybe this will help spur some memories until I can get back to Florida (and convince the wife to spend some time outside of Disney).